MCCANNS WILLING TO RETURN
Gerry and Kate McCann, both 39, have consulted lawyers in Britain after Portuguese police declared them formal suspects on Friday, Madeleine's aunt, told the BBC on Monday.
Detectives questioned the couple for hours but did not charge them. Police changed their line of inquiry after receiving partial results of forensic tests on evidence collected from various sites, including their holiday apartment.
Kate McCann told a Sunday newspaper detectives pressured her to confess to having accidentally killed her daughter.
"They want me to lie. I am being framed," she was quoted as saying in the Sunday Mirror. "They are basically saying, 'If you confess Madeleine had an accident and that I panicked ... I'd get two or three years' suspended sentence.' It is ridiculous. The worst nightmare."
The couple are at home in the village of Rothley, in central England, with crowds of journalists camped outside.
However, they are ready to face more questioning in Portugal and will fly back from time to time regardless of the police investigation, Madeleine's aunt Philomena McCann said.
"They absolutely will co-operate with the police," she said. "They are more than prepared to undergo more questioning."
She told the BBC: "The Portuguese have turned this investigation round and they are no longer looking for a live child; they are assuming on spurious evidence that Madeleine is now dead.
"We don't agree with that in any shape or form. We want the investigation changed round to look for Madeleine alive, as we reckon she is."
